Cages
by XiaShadow
Summary: The Flock is back at the school. Omega is back. Total is killed. Warning: Character Deaths!
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: The School**

'_I'll lose my hard-earned freedom if my fear defines my world…' _–Superchick

We, as in the flock and I, were back at the School. We've been here for about a year. Fang, Iggy and I are 15 now, Nudge is 13, Gazzy is 10, and Angel is 7.

Total… I really miss him. No, I'm not on drugs, for those of you who are thinking 'what?! Max misses Total? Has she gone crazy?' No, I haven't gone crazy.

But being locked up in a medium-sized dog crate, living a life of bleak existence, tends to make one miss sarcastic or funny remarks.

Even if it does come from a talking dog.

Well, for those of you who are wondering what happened to us and to Total, I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it!

About a year ago, give or take a few months, the flock and I were hanging out at a beach, against my will I might add.

It seemed like a typical day of an Avian-American, but that all changed around 6:00 P.M.

We were seated around a fire that Iggy had built; Angel and Nudge sitting next to each other and eating, Fang sitting next to me, being his usual quiet self, Gazzy was inhaling hotdogs by the second, and Iggy was chewing on his hotdog slowly, which meant he was thinking. Total was sprawled out on the ground next to Angel, munching on his own hotdog, grumbling something about how discrimative it is that they called them 'hot_dogs_'.

I was thinking of how to make Iggy give me that lighter of his, and where to go next when the setting sun was blocked out.

We all jumped into a fighter's stance, but it did no good. 8 of them had tranquillizers, and they took us down before we could even look shocked.

We woke up in dog crates at the School. I had a medium sized one well everyone else, except Angel who was kept in a clear orb thing that I'd guessed was to keep her from reading or controlling the minds of the whitecoats, got large sized crates.

Lucky me. Fang and Iggy were the only ones who weren't able to lie down comfortably.

Me? Well, I couldn't even lie down. Not even sit. I had to hunker down with my knees pulled up to my chin. And my head _still_ skimmed the top of the crate, no matter what I did.

Total was in a large crate right across from mine. After about an hour a Flyboy came in and took Total out of his cage, and left. I looked out the window; I was the only one who could get a good look. I really wished I couldn't.

The Flyboy took Total over to a tree right in my view, held him by the ankle, and slammed him into the tree over and over until Total hang limp, dead.

I almost hurled, barley suppressing it, I turned away from the window, replaying the scene over and over in my mind. I shivered, not only from cold but from fear. Would they do that to one of us?

"Max? What's wrong?" Fang asked me, sounding genuinely worried.

I glanced at him before looking at my hands again. "Nothing."

"Yeah, like I'm gonna believe that. Tell the truth, Max. Now." He said forcefully.

"No." I retorted just as forcefully. I didn't look anywhere but my hands. They suddenly seemed very interesting. I'd bet my soul Fang was scowling at me.

The door opened and closed with a _swish_, and in came some Flyboys. Two walked over to Angel, took her out, and put a knife to her throat.

Four Flyboys came to my cage, and pulled me out roughly.

I started struggling, and one of them said loud enough for everyone to hear, "If you struggle, kick, say sarcastic remarks, or anything of that sort I will make sure that your little friend here," He pointed at Angel, "will have her throat cut out."

Angel paled, hey eyes wide in fear. I stiffened, but complied, letting myself be roughly dragged out of the room. Soon I was in the killing yard. The yard where they had new Erasers kill broken experiments.

But instead of Erasers, Omega was in the yard. I glanced at the window where I knew the others were trying to watch as hard as they could, and I smirked, mouthing 'easy'.

Omega came up behind me, tapped my shoulder, and I whirled around. As soon as I turned towards him I punched him in the face, breaking his nose. It felt good.

He kicked me in the stomach, and I elbowed him in the ribs.

A few kicks and punches and cheap moves later, he was laying unconscious on the ground, face first, well I was on my hands and knees, coughing up blood. Not fun.

A few whitecoats came over and started checking my injuries, announcing what it was every time they found one.

I had a broken ring finger on my right hand, my left wrist was jammed, my jaw had chipped slightly, one rib was broken, and they guessed I had internal bleeding. Hence the blood hurling. Oh, and they said that my ankle's main tendon was wrapped around my bone in some bad way.

So yeah, I was in quite a bit of pain. And instead of getting nice meds to help with the pain, I was dragged back into the cage room and tossed in my cage quite roughly.

I drifted off before anyone could ask or say anything. I only woke up to lean out of the cage to cough up more blood. Which was about every 5 minutes. Soon a puddle of blood was on the floor right under my cage, and I could feel the flock's worried faces peering at mine.

"Max?" Fang asked after about my 20th blood hurl, the puddle was quite large now.

"Broken finger and rib, messed up ankle, chipped jaw, jammed wrist, and what ever the heck 'internal bleeding' is." I said hoarsely, and took a deep breath. Wow, it took all my energy to just talk!

"Crap." Fang muttered, the Kind of Understatements.

"Ya… think?" I choked out before falling asleep again. I woke up just in time for a whitecoat to come into the room with a bunch of water bottles. She had blonde hair with blue eyes and slim lips. Plus her whitecoat and jeans. She gave two waters to everyone but me, shooting me a smug look when she gave Fang the last two.

I felt like making a nasty retort or at least sticking out my tongue, but that took to much energy so I simply fell back asleep.

I woke up, hurled some more blood onto the quite large puddle of it, my throat burning. My tongue was like cotton, my throat dry and sandpapery.

I opened my eyes a crack and saw the flock looking at me, fear and worry written all across their features.

"How long." I muttered to Fang, who looked slightly relieved that I had talked.

"Three days." He answered. I opened my eyes fully in shock, my mouth opening in a small 'o'.

"Sorry, you guys." I said loud enough for everyone to hear. They all gave a small, relived smile when they noticed my eyes were open fully and I was talking.

I leaned out of the cage and hurled some more blood before swallowing some spit to try to get my throat to stop burning, which it didn't.

I rubbed my throat slightly before letting my eyes stray around the room. My gaze stopped on Total's old cage, and I felt sick again, remembering what had happened to him.

"Max…?" Nudge asked tensely.

"Uh ha…" I answered, fighting the urge to sleep.

"Where's Total?" She said in a rush. I glanced at her, her lip quivering. I glanced at Angel, who seemed to be hanging on every word.

I looked out the window at the tree where he had been beaten to death, and drew in a shaky breath.

'Murder,' that was all I'd have had to say, and this conversation would've been over. But I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud. I didn't answer her or look at her. How could I? That would just make it worse. Make them fear more.

But Angel and Nudge didn't need an answer; all they needed was a sign. That was that I didn't answer, or look at them.

They started crying, and I felt tempted to join them, but refused. I needed whatever water I had in my system to stay there.

I hurled some blood out again, wiped my mouth off on my sleeve, and said quietly so that nobody could hear, "He was murdered by a Flyboy, slammed into a tree again and again till he was dead."

But I guess Fang heard, because he stiffened. "Here." He muttered, thrusting his last water bottle towards me.

"No." I replied.

"You need it more." He countered.

"And this may be the last water any of you are given, so no." I said forcefully, glaring at him, daring him to try again. He did.

"Then just have a little. You need it, Max." He said, matching my force.

I sighed, saying, "You aren't gonna drop this, are you."

"Duh." He replied, a smug look on his face. I sighed again and grabbed the water bottle, opened it and took a quick sip before thrusting it back at Fang. "More." He ordered.

I sighed _again_, and drank more. "There." I said, and threw it at Fang. He caught it and dragged it into his cage while I leaned my head back against my cage wall, closing my eyes.

_Jeb?_

_**I am here Max.**_

_Good. I just want someone to talk to. Oh, and do you think you could try to get us out of here?_

_**I'm here to talk to, Max. Always here. I am sorry, but the Director isn't going to even let me visit you. She is keeping me in Germany.**_

_Okay… Do you think… that I'll ever feel as strong as I did before we came here?_

_**Yes, I do. You are Maximum Ride, forever strong, in more ways then one. You are strong physically, mentally, emotionally, and in friends.**_

_Thanks. I'll talk to you soon. Right now I think I'm gonna sleep._

_**Yes, you will. And make sure you get lots of sleep. **_

_Aye Aye, Captain!_

I think I heard chuckling coming from Jeb. I'm not sure. But I fell asleep before I could ask.

**I gave you a long first chapter. You should review, otherwise I'm not gonna post the next chapter. Oh, yeah! I have a hostage! I will not post the chapter unless I get 4 reviews. I do not own MR or any of the characters. I do own the plot and my own characters. Review and get homemade bananas!**

**Wacky saying for the chapter: '**_When life gives you lemons, make applesauce and let the world wonder how_**' **–An Icon.


	2. Chapter 2

**You know, I think ****aviator301**** is my stalker… you keep reviewing every single **

**story I post on here! But it's okay; I don't mind stalkers. xD And thanks to **

**winged-silhouette**** for reviewing too.**

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**Cages: Screams and Tears**

"_We are fire inside, we are an army asleep…_**" - Superchick**

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Well, more or less that is what my life at the School has been like. The Omega and water situation being redone every 5 days. I think they had me do that to break me, and to train Omega as a plus.

But it was a cycle that I got used to, and stopped struggling every time I was dragged out.

I think the others noticed my behaviour too, they were always looking at me, concern in all of their eyes, even Fang.

At first, it was just me being treated horribly. I no longer cared about me, I cared about nothing. Life had no meaning anymore.

I felt distant, like I was watching this all from somewhere else; it was all a movie. None of it was real.

The voice tries to help by keeping me informed on everything, and I mean everything, whether it's an Itex plot or about a bird that just flew into his window.

But I didn't care, I took to ignoring him. Tuning him out. I stopped sleeping, eating, or drinking. I wanted to die. To finish it already.

But then Gazzy was taken. I was looking out the window when it happened. As he was being dragged away, he look towards me, fear in his eyes. I looked at him, and that seemed to scare him even more.

My appearance was no longer what even a hobo would call pretty. I weighed really only about 50 pounds, and that was mostly muscle. My eyes were hollow and empty. My skin was pale, covered in scars and new wounds, my hair messy and dirty.

I looked back out the window, tuning out his screams of 'Max! Help!'; I couldn't bear it anymore. I simply stared out of the window. I glanced back one last time, and saw he was crying, still screaming my name and for help.

I lifted my hand slightly, in an effort to wave. He brightened slightly at that, and I smiled. The first real smile I had ever smiled since before we came to the School.

He strained his arm towards me, and I shook my head. I couldn't help him. He was on his own. He started crying and screaming again, and then he was dragged out of the room, his screams muffled.

We never saw Gazzy again.

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**Sorry about his death, all you Gazzy lovers. But yeah, he was the only one that **

**would work out for later chapters.**

**Wacky Quote for the Chapter: **_"When life gives you lemons, alter their DNA and make SUPER LEMONS!" –_**Icon**


	3. Chapter 3

Nudge was the next to go. It happened a week after Gazzy left. I was looking at my scar covered hands, thinking about Gazzy. About what I could've, and should've, done.

The whitecoats came in, and my head shot up, burning hatred in my glare. They stepped back before regaining their composure, and opened the cage of Nudge.

They grabbed her by her arms and began dragging her out. I was not going to lose Nudge too. I saw red, and the next thing I knew I was out of my cage, hand pressed tightly into fists, and saying in such a menacing voice that they dropped Nudge and started backing towards the door, "You take her and you die."

I took a threatening step towards them, and they turned and high-tailed it out of the room. I immediately felt weak. But I mustered up the strength to unlock the others' cages, and to help Nudge up.

"Let's roll." I said, doing my best to keep from falling asleep right then and there. I masked it up quite well, thankfully nobody noticed.

Angel, now that she was out of her orb, was keeping everyone in their offices. We went looking for Gazzy, although I knew that it was useless.

He was dead and gone. As we passed a room, I noticed the stench of death and knew what was behind the door before Nudge opened it.

She almost screamed, as did Angel. Luckily they both held it back; otherwise the alarms would've gone off. But I couldn't blame them for almost screaming.

For inside the room, the room of death, was hundreds of failed experiment corpses, and almost right smack dab in front of the door was Gazzy's.

I felt hot tears slide down my cheeks as I stepped forward and picked up the body to give it a decent burial. Fang came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder, but I barley registered it.

I was too busy looking into the now peaceful face of my little trooper. I thought of the time we prayed at the chapel, and wondered if God allowed bird kids into heaven. Gazzy deserved it.

As we exited the building, I heard the faint sound of alarms. At least is sounded distant, but I'd bet it was quite near. I'd fallen into my routine of being distant again as soon as we had left the building.

Iggy came over and took Gazzy from me, and I ushered the others into the air.

I turned around to face the School, and muttered under my breath "I'm free, and I'm trouble. Get used to it, you scumbags."

I sucked in a quick breath as I started turning around, my eye catching something, or someone, coming towards us at a run

It was Omega. "Oh, Maximum, Maximum, Maximum. Do you really think you can escape?" He said in a sing-song voice as soon as he was in range for me to hear him, "Oh, why is there only 5? Where is the little blonde boy? Did they take him and kill him as I suggested? Goodie."

He was the reason Gazzy was dead. That knowledge came rushing at me, turning my


	4. Author Note

**Okay, dear readers, I am very sorry for this. My keyboard is broken. This has taken me 15 minutes to write this little part. So until this computer keyboard is fixed, I cannot write new chapters. Once again, I am very sorry.**

**-Xia**

**P.S.- This has taken me a total of 45 minutes to write this. –pants- My fingers are cramping.**


	5. Dark Abyss

**Okay, yeah… the keyboard decides to work as soon as I tell everyone that it won't work! –grumbles- … -some random guy with a microphone comes in, smiling big- **

**RG(random guy): Hello, Xia!**

**Me: Who the $# are you?!**

**RG: A show announcer! This is all over the globe, live!**

**Me: … Whatever.**

**RG: So, would you mind saying what you had grumbled earlier louder so that the world can hear it?**

**Me: If I did, you'd get fired.**

**RG: … -gulp- Good point. On with the show!**

**Me: And on with me making you leave. –chases with large frying pan-**

**RG: OMGIEE! HELP ME!!!! –loud smash/crash-**

…**Yes, I am bored. xD**

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So, again: Omega killed Gazzy!? He was _so_ gonna pay. That thought turned my vision red, and I felt anger boil in my stomach.

"You…You… murderer! _You will die_!" I snarled, my hands curling into fists at my sides.

"Oh, but Maximum!" He said in a sing-song voice, and then his voice got low and dark, "_You are the one who will die_."

We both slipped into a fighter's stance, and began circling each other, like wild animals do when faced with an opponent. We were sizing each other up; looking for weaknesses and strengths.

Suddenly Omega jumped forward, snapping out his leg for a kick. I dodged it and, using my momentum, snapped a quick and hard kick to the side of his head.

He blinked in surprise and pain, and then he slowly straitened.

"You've gotten some of your old spirit back, Maximum." He muttered, and I sent him a smug look.

"Oh, I hadn't lost it. I'd just forgotten it." I replied, and punched him in the face, breaking his nose. It started gushing blood, and he scowled. It felt good.

I was just about to kick again when Omega jumped me, his face dark and deadly. He tackled me and repeatedly punched me in the face.

I managed to get him off me, and then I was on top of him, my hands around his throat, watching his eyes go to pinpoints, then roll up into his head.

It was done. Omega was dead. I stood up and brushed myself off, and then flew up into the air after Fang, Iggy, Nudge, and Angel.

Fang kept watching me, no doubt wondering if I was doing what he had done when Ari had clawed his side. But I wasn't. I felt oddly numb; the only pain was a dull throbbing coming from my side.

We landed as the sun set, and settled down for the night. Fang was on watch, despite my protests. After a few hours of tossing and turning, I gave up on trying to sleep. Instead I stood up and sat down next to Fang.

He patted my knee to my surprise, and I leaned against him, suddenly feeling extremely exhausted.

I closed my eyes, and after a few minutes of bliss, I allowed myself to let go. Fang could take charge. I couldn't handle it anymore. I let my organs shut down, and murmured quietly, but loud enough for Fang to hear:

"I love you, Fang. Take charge."

And then I allowed myself to enter the large abyss that is death, hoping for a heaven.

**Fang POV**

Max came over and sat next to me, and I reached out and patted her knee for reassurance. She leaned against me, sighing heavily. She closed her eyes, and I took the time to enjoy being close enough to hold her, comfort her again.

Then I heard her whisper softly, but loud enough for me to hear: "I love you, Fang. Take charge."

And then she went limp. "Max?" I said, my voice cracking.

Max. Gone. Forever.

But I could go on. She would want me to.

She would want me:

To take care of the Flock.

To save the world.

And to join her when it was my time.

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My first fan fic that I actually finished! I know, sad. But not quite as sad as those other fan fics where Fang kills himself. Review!


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